Labour Party leader Keir Starmer told automakers last week that his party would hold firm on a clean-car policy that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing calls to back down from.
(Bloomberg) — Labour Party leader Keir Starmer told automakers last week that his party would hold firm on a clean-car policy that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing calls to back down from.
Starmer kicked off the gathering hosted by the UK’s car lobby by telling executives he’s committed to ending sales of new cars powered entirely by petrol or diesel by 2030, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private.
Sunak, by contrast, is under growing pressure to put the brakes on the 2030 phase-out plan. His Conservative Party eked out a narrow victory in a special election last month in Uxbridge and South Ruislip — a seat formerly held by Boris Johnson — in a campaign dominated by the planned expansion of London’s zone where owners of older polluting vehicles will be charged fees to drive.
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Rather than take the Uxbridge result as a cue to back down from the 2030 plan, Labour will push for more to be done to make electric cars and public chargers more accessible and affordable. The UK has slashed grants for EVs and faces the prospect of 10% tariffs on battery-powered vehicles shipped to and from the European Union.
Those levies, slated to take effect in January, stem from the Brexit trade deal Johnson brokered at the end of 2020. That agreement was too little, too late for some — Honda Motor Co. closed its lone UK car plant months later, and other manufacturers have pared back their presence. Industrywide production slumped last year to the lowest since 1956.
Sunak has said he’s fully committed to the UK’s plan to lower net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, though he wants to get there “in a proportionate and pragmatic way.” While government ministers have said the 2030 target remains in place, Sunak’s comments have unnerved some in the car industry.
Speculation that the UK will change its 2030 policy is “unhelpful,” Mike Hawes, chief executive officer of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, told reporters last week.
“Carmakers are committed to the decarbonization of their products, with many having already announced dates for the phasing out of traditional powertrains in advance of the UK’s timetable,” Hawes said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Manufacturers have invested billions of pounds into this transition and now need the market to accelerate, not just to get a return on that investment, but to meet societal and environmental ambitions.”
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